Access to, and the initiation of, a collaborative session between a group of users has been simplified by a wide variety of presently available collaborative tools and conferencing systems. Collaborative tools can include social networking applications, instant messaging (IM) applications, video-conferencing applications, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) applications, media sharing applications, and the like. Using collaborative tools, a collaborative session can be established among a group of geographically separated users. In addition, a user can connect to a collaborative session, while still in the workplace of the user, and participate in a group discussion.
Collaborative applications also can be integrated within the structure of a conferencing system, further enhancing the interactive capabilities available to the users during the collaborative session. Modern conferencing systems can facilitate seamless operation between collaborative applications executing on networked servers, e.g., media servers and application servers, communicating over Internet gateways, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and/or other networks. Users involved in a collaborative session using these conferencing systems can participate in a visual and/or auditory interaction, exchange text messages, exchange data files, or the like. For example, a conferencing system can establish a collaborative session between members of a geographically dispersed marketing team. During the collaborative session, team members can view a presentation by a manager, view files from one or more of the team members, share files between team members, and discuss issues related to a product line.